Stories about Shire Reviews – About

When I First, the county story was played Back in September 2024, I was disappointed but full of hope. Yes, it has a lot of problems, but it has a lot of potential. The King of Rings and the type of life on display are clearly respected, considering that the game has been postponed to the following year, I and I both felt like the same on the same page when it comes to games that are not enough. Imagine my surprise when I launch the launch version of Legend of Charles, more or less unchanged.

The Charles story at WētāWorkshop feels incomplete. The gameplay is limited and monotonous, its story and characters are haunting, and the performance is very rough, and despite the awkward world of the game and the charm of the hobbits that live in it, the visuals are usually low quality and date rather than whimsical. Despite playing it on two different consoles – the Notando switch and the steam deck – encountered many bugs and visual ic experiences. While it has good enough mechanics and has some lovely ideas, County's story is sadly unsanded and incompatible – given the level of filling of the comfortable game genre, you'll have a hard time finding a reason to play in its current state.

Located in Baishui Village (although it should be pointed out that the “village” partly is heatedly contested by its residents and serves as the crux of the game), the story of The County Story is that you see the character of the Hobbit, leaving the Hobbit, leaving the town of Bree, and starting a new life in a quiet and pastoral place. Although the game's character creator isn't particularly powerful, it's not severely restricted, and has allowed me to create a charming plump hobbit with dark, curly hair, thick lashes and two micro-haired covered feet. Using the game's suggestion of the Hobbit, I named my first Jessamine – play cleverly with my own name and climb onto a slim, bearded wizard's carriage, surely no Gandalf – Blink. From there we rode the first one in the game many Quiet awkwardly.

To its credit, The County Story does a great job among the boarding players. Once I arrived, I was told that, as you might guess, the quickest way to get to the hobbit heart is through their belly. So many games revolve around collecting ingredients (whether through foraging, fishing, gardening or bartering) and invite my neighbors to share with me. While the initial series of tasks you can learn more about these aspects is a self-critical wild goose chase turned into a series of Grating Fetch Quests, the mechanics associated with these mini games are simple but interesting due to the lack of better terms, even if the game doesn't always explain them thoroughly. Fortunately, everything is simple. Foraging will see you harvest wild plants and fungi with a simple button; fishing is neither cruel nor boring. The story of Shire’s main event, Cooking, was actually a very good time. It includes the way you prepare ingredients to keep the whole meal in line with the smooth and crispy flavor of the shaft. It's a new perspective on a cooking mini game that makes it much less passive than many Life Sims, and I'm so grateful for considering the fact that cooking is essentially the love language in your entire game – it should It feels like an act, not a means.

Conceptually, I actually really like this kind of ego. While there are certainly some exceptions, many comfortable life simulation games seem to boil down to one of two things you do: build your residence by finding true love (Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon, Mistria realm), or encourage colorful characters to build a residence in your newly discovered town (Animal Cross, Disney Dearney Dreamlight Valley, Hello Hello kitty Inlrand Inlder, Hello Hello Hello kitty Inlder Inlder Uldile). In The Stories of Shire – When clumsy old people like to remind you, you are a newbie, absolutely no The town's focus or focus. You will no Getting treatment for Gilmore Girls here, I admire this authenticity. And, with no choice to give gifts, and no hobbits to court, being a precious resident of worship water feels sincere, like what you really work hard to do for the only reason to build a community.

However, in execution, Charles' story is difficult to grope for a number of reasons. First, there is no certain end goal that leads to the lack of any outstanding sense of progress in the game. Of course, the driving force for progress and optimization of humanity is extremely human, so this system is excluded from being the subject, but I think it is an overly generous reading and forgetting about a forget that there must be some “game” in order to make the game fascinating. Despite the tasks to be completed, strengthening relationships and getting some upgrades, the game's trivial story, reliance on extracting tasks, deep characters that lack meaningful interactions with, and general indifference to you, as the characters make you care about doing anything extremely Difficult. In short, I don’t have an external call to be a part of Bywater, nor can I inspire myself to care in nature.

Although the conversations of these characters are between pleasantly dry and smart enough to at least be repaired, all the residents of Water feel lifeless and vacant, which doesn’t help. Part of this is their lack of depth, which makes them feel flat, indistinguishable and impenetrable. However, another part of it comes from the game's choice, i.e., excluding voice performances, prominent music, and even some dynamic sound effects, which makes the interaction usually awkward.

Unfortunately, this uselessness only outweighs the character and defines the overall. Despite the changing seasons, the game generally lacks vitality. This is even reflected in your own conversational choices that are often limited and are almost unaware of the actions you take sometimes. Despite the good scale of Bywater, there isn't much to do outside of the core game loop, which quickly grows old, mostly filled with hobbits you simply can't interact with, but just exists, just making the world richer. Although I understand the logic of this, especially since there are only 15 actual characters in the game, it just makes the entire village feel more superficial. Over time, I appreciated the ease with which the decorative Hobbit hole was so simple and encouraged a long activity – I never wanted to interact with a lot of other things.

The presence of these NPCs also seems to contribute to another story of Shire’s most pressing problem: its performance. Throughout the process, I played it in Shire's Story, and I played it on two different consoles: my Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck. I started with the Nintendo Switch and at first I thought it's just about my performance issues because I haven't cheated on the funds to buy the Switch 2. Items and characters were cut, my screen went black during the interaction, and the game completely frozen and/or crashed. It also looks shocking horrible. I remember playing better games on Gamecube 20 years ago, I remember playing better games on Gamecube, and it is clear that it has nothing to do with the art direction and style choices of the game, just like how everything is presented.

So while I've felt like I've found the boring and frustrating game for hours, I decided to restart and give it a chance on my Steam deck, which always managed to ask for the game more graphically on the way. Visually Better, Not good, but I still have to endure bugs, malfunctions, freezes, crashes, and The game is generally pretty bland.

As someone who loves Lord of the Rings, life and comfort games, The Story of Charles is heartbreaking and disappointing – so much that I found myself really wondering what went wrong. With such a strong premise, a solid team doing its work seems to be a concentrated effort to get the game to be fully cooked before shipment, I ended up being confused by the finished product and worried about what happened during the production process. Although The Legend of Charles has some fascinating ideas, boring gameplay, a lot of bugs and general emptiness, it ultimately drags this once-promoted simulation of life into Moria's pit.